"I got transported through a worm hole..."

“I broke my leg,” is a good reason to skip a workout.  “I’d rather watch all nine seasons of Star Trek Next Generation,” is, well, less good (although T.R. seems to be surviving a summer of doing just that).  “I’d rather floss my teeth,” at least involves a healthy behavior, but it’s not very plausible, it probably won’t happen, and it doesn’t take long enough to justify missing an entire workout.  And that is assuming it isn’t being said in the sense of “I’d rather poke my eyes out with flaming spoons.”

We all have days when we don’t feel like working out.  We can make up excellent and creative excuses for ourselves.  Our Inner Sloth will happily loll around on the lounge chair with a fruity drink.  Or our Inner Puritan will insist that we have important work to do instead.  Or our Inner Brat will just have a tantrum and demand a toy.  (It’s getting crowded In There!)

But we can ask ourselves a key question or two to sort out the good reasons from the bad.  Maybe “Do I feel up to going out with friends?”  (This is a little bit like when Mom would tell us if we were too sick to go to school, we were too sick to ride our bikes.)  Or “Which will make me feel better, getting this spreadsheet done now or working out?”  Or “Would I brag about what I did instead?”  Find the questions that work.  We might skip fewer workouts.